Namibia G.O. Team 2005

Hakuna Matata

I arrived in Namibia on Wednesday at 12:55pm and was feeling the adrenaline of my arrival and had no sign of jet-lag. I immediately was off to work with Dieter after a brief hello and big hug to Sylvia and Brenda from Hopes Promise and saying good-bye to the Knight family.

Our first stop was the Emmanuel church in Windhoek where Dieter had two guys from Vyf Rand working on the Judea Harvest tents. I also had a chance to share the upcoming mission with the Namibia Missions Pastor and scope out possibilities for outreach. We were then off to town to exchange money and buy some power adapters and a new cell phone… mission accomplished… we then visited another tent church to take some measurements and then went back to Emmanuel to help the guys finish the job. We arrived back at Mpampo at around 7:45pm where we had a wonderful dinner of vegetable stir-fry…. All veggies with none of the Otjiwarongo aftermath…..

Thursday my agenda consisted of making arrangements for meals. We went hunting 80km and it was a true African Safari!!!! I guarantee that I walked on ground that no other man had walked on. We took “roads” that were just tire tracks in the felt (tall grass) and then made our own roads driving over rocks and hills and trees in order to pick up the animals. You will be happy to know that the first thing that I have scheduled for the meals is Kudu. I have learned how to skin a Kudu and how it is butchered…. I even have one of the bullets that took her down. We then went in for lunch with Hazel, the owner of the farm. What a precious lady. She served us a meal of goat, rice, , yams, cauliflower and pineapple. After lunch we were off on the search for warthogs…. We walked to their caves, which are holes in the side of a hill (and is near leopard territory…. glad I didn’t meet him…. especially after the stories I heard at lunch). From there we drove for a while not seeing much of anything and I was really wanting to get a warthog…. I’ve never had warthog. We started up a hill and I prayed that God would provide a warthog and that I would be the one to spot it (which is almost impossible…. just ask my friend Laura… I never notice anything first and that is if I spot it at all). Anyway, we are heading up this hill and next thing you know I look to my left and I see two warthogs walking away from us up another hill… a clear shot…. So at this moment I am trying to figure out how to point them out… stuttering all the way. Do I knock on the roof like they do? What do I? Do I? So I hit Dieter, he stops, the big game hunter Pastor Ron Gardiner notices my frantic pointing and “BAM”…. Pumba is down. Ron is out of the Land Rover running to the spot and cautiously making sure Mrs. Pumba is gone. Man…. he’s big…. and we have menu item #2. We were then on our way back to camp enjoying the scenery, stopping to look at a huge bull Kudu and other wild life. We come around another corner and Dieter points out a bunch of baboons (which of course I am frantically looking for because I never notice anything!!!) and then the stuttering and pointing starts again and “BAM” down goes Pumba’s grandfather. This guy was so close we just had to get out of the car and walk 100 yards to check him out. Dieter insisted on taking my picture with this guy since I suddenly became the “master spotter”. What the above picture doesn’t show is that right after this picture was taken a huge breathe came out of his nose and kicked up the dirt under his nostrils. Dieter took another picture where my smile was a bit more of a “hurry up”…. and Ron was telling him to “take the picture already, he’s still alive”… a couple more big breaths and I quickly stood up, picked the thorns out of my knees and we were off to see how a warthog is butchered.

So as you can see I am working hard and God is answering prayers and providing each step of the way. 7 more days and the journey begins for the rest of the team…… See you soon!!

posted by germaine @ 10:23 AM